Some of the finest literature in the world has been written in the shades of the prison-house. Ovid composed his Tristia as a convict in the Crimea, the reason for his marooning being that he had loved the Emperor Augustus’ daughter too deeply. Boethius penned his Consolations of Philosophy when under sentence of death. James the First of Scotland solaced his days of captivity at Windsor with the creation of that noble volume, The Queen's Quhair. A distinguished French prisoner in England, Charles D’Orleans, the contemporary of Villon, beguiled his dull leisure with the invention of beautiful poems.

Villon, jail-bird and man of genius, was not as well housed by his captors and jailers as Charles, but his miserable condition was a sharp spur to his quick brain. In the Castle of Meung he was cast into a cell without light or air, dripping with water and swarming with rats, toads and snails. In such miserable conditions he wrote his Ballad of Debate of the Heart and Body of Villon and his Ballad of Villon in Prison, a most poignant appeal to help Francois living instead of saving up prayers for Francois dead. Here is a taste of its quality: